Insomniac’s waking dream: black cat,
the fulcrum of a fight. Bad luck. Look at

all we’ve saved in cardboard boxes and moved
across the country: the diary which proved

the infidelities, the folded notes
passed in the hall, the braided (quote, unquote)

friendship bracelet. Well, we never really
had one, did we? Phallic calla lily—

funereal—or is that the sword
lily? Gladiolus. Showy, unfurled,

let loose like your dark curls. And more abstract:
the wine glass, the cabernet, sex act

at the back of the pool hall. You were late.
I was worried. It’s kind of hard to explain.

Amy Schrader is the author of The Plagiarist (forthcoming from Finishing Line Press, 2017) and The Situation & What Crosses It (MoonPath Press, 2014). She has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Washington; her poems have most recently appeared in Bone Bouquet, Rattle, Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology, Unsplendid, and The Monarch Review.